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Webinar: Covering the lawsuit that could limit free preventive care |
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05/10/23 |
One of the biggest health care stories of 2023 will break when the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Texas rules in the case of Braidwood Management v. Becerra. In this challenge to provisions in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Christian-owned businesses and six individuals in Texas assert that the ACA’s requirements to cover preventive services without requiring patients to pay some of the costs of care is unconstitutional. If the court rules in the plaintiffs' favor, Americans may need to pay more for preventive health care.
To learn more about the implications of the lawsuit, A. Mark Fendrick, M.D., one of the nation’s leading experts on how cost-sharing harms patients, joined AHCJ for a webcast on May 10. Fendrick explained how journalists can cover this story and how, if the plaintiffs succeed on either constitutional or religious grounds, it could limit or restrict the government’s ability to require health insurers and employers to cover evidence-based preventive services without cost-sharing.
A. Mark Fendrick, M.D., is the founder and director of the Value-Based Insurance Design Center at the University of Michigan. He is also a professor of internal medicine in the university’s School of Medicine and a professor of Health Management and Policy in the university’s School of Public Health. A practicing physician, Fendrick has seen how requiring consumers to pay for preventive health services causes patients to disregard physicians' orders because they cannot afford to do so, leading to adverse effects on patients' health. Since founding the VBID in 2005, Fendrick has advised Congress, employers, health plans and federal agencies on the need to eliminate patient cost-sharing.
Additional resources
- No-Cost Preventive Services Are Now in Jeopardy. Here’s What You Need to Know, Julie Appleby, KFF Health News, April 7, 2023.
- Judge’s Decision Would Make Some No-Cost Cancer Screenings a Thing of the Past, Julie Appleby and Michelle Andrews, KFF Health News, March 30, 2023
- Explaining Litigation Challenging the ACA’s Preventive Services Requirements: Braidwood Management Inc. v. Becerra, KFF, April 4, 2023
- Behind the push to strike down free preventative health care in America, WBUR On Point with A. Mark Fendrick MD and Nicholas Bagley, April 26, 2023
- A Texas Judge Just Invalidated The Preventive Services Mandate. What Happens Next?, Health Affairs, March 30, 2023
- Braidwood Management Inc., et al., plaintiffs, v. Xavier Becerra, et al., defendants, Civil Action No. 4:20-cv-00283-O, March 30, 2023.
- USPSTF recommendation on breast-cancer screening, May 9, 2023
- USPSTF recommendation on latent TB infection screening, May 2, 2023
- What’s Wrong With Health Insurance? Deductibles Are Ridiculous, for Starters, Aaron E. Carrol, MD, NY Times, July 7, 2022.